Make it Meta | Booster Gold's Army of One (Costs)

Hello and welcome everyone, today is the day! The final dedicated Justice League team is here and Booster Gold is ready for his debut. Here's hoping I don't disappoint and that this team makes you think of how to use characters in new and unexpected ways.

While I fully believe that the selection of Booster Gold's rarity is something of a forgone conclusion, it's worthwhile to list and explain my decisions. In respective order, let's see what Booster Gold has to offer:

Niche early beatstick of nicheness

Energy flexibility and banking potential

Cost reduction and free prep

Early beatsticks generally have more to offer than Booster Gold and I think that energy banking is something to add as support, not something to build around. Clearly our best option is going to be blowing our rare budget right from the start and going with Booster Gold - High Publicity Hijinks. In order to make him work, we're going to be abusing his ability with Black Widow - Natasha and Falcon - Samuel Wilson. Bother are 2-cost Avengers that are going to support the field swarming and constant attacking game that I'm looking to play. Natasha in specific is great for persistent early damage since she is effectively unblockable against sidekick walls and any setup that doesn't repeatedly cycle characters won't be able to keep paying her tax (Tsarina may work better in this slot, but I refuse to play into the meta's hands). Since they're both cheap to purchase and cheap to field Avengers, I also want Nick Fury - WWII Veteran on my team. I've always been a fierce supporter of the most overlooked copy of (AvX) Nick Fury and this is a team in which he can thrive. Early and cheap Avengers have always been a strong setup and WWII Veteran is fantastic both for his price and his effect, turning Black Widow into a 1-cost clone of Kitty Pryde - Shadowcat and Falcon into a 1-cost clone of Spider-Man - Webhead.

Core

Already we have a very clear win condition in buying and fielding a ton of Avengers by abusing Booster Gold and waiting until the right energy comes along. One issue we have is that we're going to be sending our own characters off the field almost as fast as we can play them. This is a big issue in that we're only able to draw 4 dice a turn and sidekicks are going to clog our bag a good deal. To almost immediately remedy this, we can bring Red Tornado - Lab Creation on board. He allows us to churn through the dross of sidekicks and practically guarantee we draw a character to play down and keep the punches coming. As you all are sure to know at this point, I'm terrified of my opponent bringing globals like Distraction or Phoenix/Mr. Fantastic, and if I don't have some way to deal with that I feel completely naked. Accordingly, I will be bringing one of my personal favorite character to the table: Human Paladin. He provides so much extra utility now that also shuts down Jocasta that I am having a harder and harder time justifying not bringing him and on a semi-weenie team that does no ability damage, I have to give in.

Support

Something that we're really missing is any sort of removal. That's always a bad idea and so we must remedy it posthaste. Storm - African Priestess sounds like the perfect option being cheap, easy to field, and easy to get back off the field for another round. She's definitely a more meta choice, but I have used her before and I see more people using her uncommon rather than her common, so I think she's still allowed. Spot removal is always a great idea since some teams rely on specific characters to function, but when running a field-swarm team, chump blockers can be just as necessary to control. To that end I want to bring along a character capable of clearing away a large portion of the field all at once. A green menace that strikes fear into the heart of your opponent. A 6- monster that can quickly AoE down your opponent's field. A character that perfectly synergizes with one of the characters we already have on the team. That's right, Green G-- sorry Dragon. Green Dragon - Master Dragon to be specific. His breath weapon will clear away a ton of opposing characters, especially since he's also leveling them down at the same moment. This ability to spin down the entire opposing field is invaluable for getting Natasha swinging through unblocked and the Falcons can follow along and clear off any non-chump blockers that managed to survive, likely resulting in a full-field clear. Despite the bait-and-switch, I really feel that Green Dragon is better suited to the team than Green Golith since I can proc him on demand and with whatever energy I like, him being a lesser used character is just icing on the cake.

Finally, we have two open BAC slots to fill and one clear weakness. We do have a source of churn in Red Tornado, but we have no source of ramp (other than saccing our own Booster Gold and that is quite inefficient). To fix that, our first slot is an easy choice with Resurrection fitting in perfectly. It provides us with on-demand ramp and something to do if we end up buying extra Nick Fury's without betraying us if our opponent buys the die as would be the case with Villainous Pact. To top us off, I want to bring a little extra damage to the table. It's all well and good to have a big field to swing with, but I want to be able to push that over the top and the BAC that does that for me is Fireball. It's effectively a cheaper to purchase one-off breath weapon because our field is actually very resilient. None of our important characters are weak enough to die to its non-burst faces and it also clears storm off if we're having issues sending her back. That direct damage and field clear for cheap is very worthwhile on this team as it can be achieved with much investment and early enough to really put our opponent on a clock. I had originally been considering Ready to Rocket since we're almost certain to get 2+ Avengers in for damage, but the ability to clear away a field as well as deal some direct damage is well worth the health we're spending and the slightly higher purchasing cost.

Full Build

The idea is going to be acquiring a very early copy of Booster Gold and using him to buy 3+ copies of Black Widow or Falcon when we have the opportunity. Somewhere along the line Nick Fury is picked up so that those two are even more hefty and turn into a real threat. Red Tornado is always there to keep the characters circulating since they're bound to fly off the board as fast as you can field them and also provides a nice wall to hang around for an opportune moment. Storm removal is always an option if you have a problem with one of your opponent's characters and picking her up makes Fireball twice as valuable. Finally, Green Dragon makes a great finisher, clearing away a ton of opposing characters and making Black Widow even more hard to block than she already is. Overall, this is a very heavy attacking force and once it's built up, it's very hard to put down.

This is the final dedicated Justice League installment of my blog and I'm quite happy with the results. This team has a few places it could be improved by substituting more meta options, but even without, the concepts stands on its own as a powerful strategy. I've never once heard of Booster Gold being legitimately considered as a viable option for a team and so making a setup that suits him like a glove is quite rewarding. It will be interesting to see this strategy expounded upon as Big Entrance enters the meta, but I'm quite convinced that the strategy is only going to become more powerful. Irregardless, thank you all for reading along and I look forward to returning to the whole of Dice Masters for blog fodder. Have a great day everyone!

Great build, but if your Avengers are already super cheap to field, wouldn't a different Fury be more effective?

And this is why you should triple check your articles. Clearly my BAC's are not right, but Nick Fury was supposed to be WWII Veteran instead of Mr. Anger. I've always like him best of his 3 iterations and this team puts him to very good use.